X-Fi Xtreme Music vs.Revolution 7.1

Apathy

Apathy

Gawd
Joined
Oct 29, 2004
Messages
890
the cards:
M-Audio:
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Revolution71-main.html

X-Fi:
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=14066

alright, ive done some of the research on my own, read reviews, checked specs, etc. but this is the last place i come before money gets spent on my pc.

so ill be brief. i hate soundblaster, i always have, and i hope the entire 'creative' team gets burned in a fire for ruining music for so many years. however, i realize times change, companies stop sucking, and the sky shall rain down eternal hellfire on those that covet my m-audio revo.

so now to the point. which card is going to produce the best sound for each of the following:

Games: With Headphones / Without Headphones
Music: With Headphones / Without Headphones


from everything ive read, the creative card still seems to be lacking in the music department which really seems lame to me, being that the creative A2-ZS cards were out long after the revo 7.1 came out, and they still produced no where close to the music quality that the revo produced. ive never really noticed any problems with my sony mdr-v6's, or my speaker setup for gaming with the m-audio, though people say there is something lacking, i havent had the pleasure of noticing it, and i am a complete -music- quality enthusiast, which i guess gives me no base to judge game sound quality. games like Counter-Strike 1.6 - source, fear, bf2, etc etc have always seemed to me to sound close to perfect. music played in Winamp with DFX pro tweaked a bit + the revo 7.1 has never been shown up by any similarly priced setup ive heard.

switch to x-fi xtrememusic, or stay with the m-audio revo 7.1?

gimme t3h 1337 h4rd feedback 4tw.
 
The X-Fi has supirior gaming with headphones.
The 3D posistioning is the best you can get.
Read any reviev, they all state that :)
Not to mention hardware EAX 5.0 HD
7.1 Gaming is also superb on the X-Fi, I can vouch for that.
Music, i don't know how the Revolution sounds there, so can't give you any answer there.

Terra...
 
already have the revo 7.1, i know the 5.1 is newer and probably better, didnt see any reason to downgrade the cards though.
 
if you want to do any type of recording at all, dont get an m-audio 7.1 or 5.1. Has a terrible lack of options so i returned mine
 
after reading your sig...

if music is that important to you, just get a EMU soundcard. also, Altec Lansing MX5021 aren't exactly the best speakers for music.

the way i see it, seperate your music/gaming needs and just run 2 sounds cards.
 
The Revolution 5.1 is complete and utter garbage IMO. M-audio's customer service and driver support are the worst I've ever seen too. As much as I dislike Creative I will never buy another one of M-audio's products again. I can't wait for someone to step up and make a quality sound card.
 
Damn, I was thinking of buying an M-Audio soundcard for music. If the driver support is that bad I might as well not even bother. Now I don't know what to get.
 
Blown 89 said:
The Revolution 5.1 is complete and utter garbage IMO. M-audio's customer service and driver support are the worst I've ever seen too. As much as I dislike Creative I will never buy another one of M-audio's products again. I can't wait for someone to step up and make a quality sound card.
Click to expand...

Why is this? Please justify. They're not a commonly talked about item like the Bose Triports, so if you have such opinions, then I'd like to know what makes them that bad. To me they're many steps up from both SB Live! and my Creative Muvo^2 X-Trainer, and in specific comparison to my mp3 player, removes a great deal of harshness from the treble.

I guess driver support comes into play if your drivers don't work. That depends on what the buyer needs the card for. I only use them for playback via ASIO, and that works, but I don't know what doesn't work, so YMMV.

Edit: it seems like the OP wants playback. There shouldn't be a problem at all.
 
yea, m-audio's driver support really does suck ass seeing as how the last driver update for the card/os was just over 2 years ago. but it works just fine and has no issues. im just looking for the next best thing. ive checked out the audiophile as dude reccomended, but how much better is this: http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Audiophile192-focus.html going to sound than this: http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Revolution71-focus.html . i dont see much of an improvement for music listenin, but then again i dont know shit about the detailed spec. differences.

belp me
 
Apathy said:
yea, m-audio's driver support really does suck ass seeing as how the last driver update for the card/os was just over 2 years ago
Click to expand...

If it works, then why does their driver support suck ass? You want them to release software just for the sake of releasing software and having releases that don't do anything? If you have any issues with it, state them, but if you have no issues with it, then why do you want an update?
 
if you had bothered to read the next sentence or two, you would see that i had no problems with the older drivers, and was only saying that they lacked progressive driver updates that might be some sort of an improvement over a 2-year old code.

Apathy said:
yea, m-audio's driver support really does suck ass seeing as how the last driver update for the card/os was just over 2 years ago. but it works just fine and has no issues. im just looking for the next best thing.
Click to expand...
 
Apathy said:
if you had bothered to read the next sentence or two, you would see that i had no problems with the older drivers, and was only saying that they lacked progressive driver updates that might be some sort of an improvement over a 2-year old code.
Click to expand...

I did read your sentence, and although you are asking for something vague and judging them with harsh terms such as "suck ass", I won't argue with you.
 
Xeero said:
the way i see it, seperate your music/gaming needs and just run 2 sounds cards.
Click to expand...

Problem with this: NForce4 Sli Motherboards (At least mine) only have TWO PCI slots. If gaming is that important to have a dedicated sound card for gaming, there is a good chance he is running a PCI-e motherboard to support the newest grafix cards. Running two soundcards thus uses all of your PCI slots... want a tv tuner card? Well then too bad.
 
Cyrilix said:
I did read your sentence, and although you are asking for something vague and judging them with harsh terms such as "suck ass", I won't argue with you.
Click to expand...
haha I want to sig that. May I Cyrilix?
 
Smitty2k1 said:
Problem with this: NForce4 Sli Motherboards (At least mine) only have TWO PCI slots. If gaming is that important to have a dedicated sound card for gaming, there is a good chance he is running a PCI-e motherboard to support the newest grafix cards. Running two soundcards thus uses all of your PCI slots... want a tv tuner card? Well then too bad.
Click to expand...

Get an external dac. Solves all SORTS of problems, not to mention quality is leaps and bounds above most soundcard solutions, including the Creative, M-Audio, and Emu. Prices range from about $90 to infinity.

For about $130, I reccomend the DAC-AH. For about $160-$400 (depending on mods), go for the Zhalou 2.0. Its getting rave reviews and what I am ordering shortly. Hook it up via toslink cable and your set. If you dont want to go toslink at all, there are several good usb dacs out there too.

www.headfi.com is where you wanna ask.
 
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